It's the LAST DAY of Brad's week-and-a-half long Guest Hosting stint on the Peter B. Collins Show! And boy have we had a great time, and hope you have, too! Listen in today at 3p-6p PT (6p-9p ET) for our final "Bradcast" from the facilities of Pacifica's Houston station, KPFT.

Today is BE THE MEDIA/FREE-SPEECH FRIDAY! So it's your chance to call in with whatever's on your mind (1-888-5PeterB)!

We'll have a few guests hanging with us. With perhaps more to come (if we're in the mood, or they decide to drop by). Just added: GREG PALAST, whom you may have heard of, will be dropping by to say hello and take your calls.

HOUR 2: Open lines, more news from Bush World, and Bryan Myers on details from PBS's NOW report on vote-caging, airing this evening...

HOUR 3: Election Integrity Hour - Details from Bowen's "Top-to-Bottom Review" with John Gideon (report was released while we were on the air), a hand-off to Christine Craft of 1240am Talk City in Sacramento, who will be taking over as Guest Host of the PBC show beginning next week, and also leading a group to Bowen's public hearing next Monday, and tons of last minute callers!...

Notes from ongoing conference call with Debra Bowen:
1. Security teams were able to bypass both physical and software security in every system they tested.
2. SOS wants input from people who will read the several-hundred page report of findings over the weekend.
3. No recommendations made yet - awaiting input Monday
4. Public hearing at 10 a.m. Monday (7/30/07) at the SOS auditorium in Sacramento and continue that day until all testimony is taken.
5.Web cast likely via CalChannel live. Will also be videotaped and archived on Monday.
6. L.A. County's InkAVote is in limbo - since there was such delay by ES&S - uncertain how long it will take to deal with them - status up in the air.
7. Decisions WILL be made on EVERY system (Sequoia, ES&S and Diebold) by August 3rd.

6.1 Sequoia
The red team analyzing the Sequoia system identified several issues. They fall into
several classes:
1. Physical Security. The testers were able to gain access to the internals of the systems
by, for example, unscrewing screws to bypass locks. The screws were not protected
by seals. Similarly, plastic covers that were protected by seals could be pried open
enough to insert tools that could manipulate the protected buttons without damaging
the disk, they could overwrite the boot loader and replace it with a malicious boot loader.
This program could then corrupt anything it loaded, including previously uncorrupted
firmware. the seals or leaving any evidence that the security of the system had been
compromised.
2. Overwriting Firmware. The testers discovered numerous ways to overwrite the
firmware of the Sequoia Edge system, using (for example) malformed font files and
doctored update cartridges. The general approach was to write a program into
memory and use that to write the corrupt firmware onto disk. At the next reboot, the
boot loader loaded the malicious firmware. At this point, the attackers controlled the
machine, and could manipulate the results of the election. No source code access was
required or used for this attack, and a feature of the proprietary operating system on
the Edge made the attack easier than if a commercial operating system had been used.
3. Overwriting the Boot Loader. Just as the testers could overwrite firmware on the
disk, they could overwrite the boot loader and replace it with a malicious boot loader.
This program could then corrupt anything it loaded, including previously uncorrupted
firmware.
4. Detecting Election Mode. The firmware can determine whether the system is in test
mode (LAT) or not. This means malicious firmware can respond correctly to the preelection
testing and incorrectly to the voters on Election Day.
5. Election Management System. The testers were able to bypass the Sequoia WinEDS
client controlling access to the election database, and access the database directly.
They were able to execute system commands on the host computer with access only
to the database. Further, the testers were able to exploit the use of the autorun feature
to insert a malicious program onto the system running the Sequoia WinEDS client;
this program would be able to detect the insertion of an election cartridge and
configure it to launch the above attacks when inserted into an Edge.
6. Presence of an Interpreter. A shell-like scripting language interpreted by the Edge
includes commands that set the protective counter, the machine’s serial number,
modify the firmware, and modify the audit trail.
7. Forging materials. Both the update cartridges and voter cards could be forged.
The report presents several scenarios in which these weaknesses could be exploited to
affect the correct recording, reporting, and tallying of votes.

Those who would dismiss out of hand our allegations of election fraud are fond of claiming that there is not a “shred of evidence” to substantiate our charges. To the contrary, there are millions of shreds of evidence in Ohio. In at least 56 of 88 counties, ballots and other elections records were shredded or otherwise destroyed....

1. Why are we trying to impeach two guys who were never legitimately elected in the first place?

2. How can Congress tolerate a tyrant worse than King George? King George was pretty bad, but at least he recognized the Magna Carta and did not try to abolish habeus corpus as George Bush has done. King George did not seize, imprison, torture, and sometimes kill people on his word alone, without charges, without trial, and in secret prisons. King George claimed Divine Right, but never claimed that God talked to him. King George did not set himself above the laws of man, God, and nature as George Bush has.

3. What good are even honest elections when there are three bodies, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Electoral College (the last two unelected) who can nullify elections at will and seat whomever they please without reference to the will of the people?

I favor Congressional clerks authorized to shoot perfidious representatives and senators. We want to keep the good ones for as long as possible because they have the kind of experience with the issues it might take to really take things forward. We just have to fix the corruptibility problem with licensed-to-kill clerks.

Did someone just use the words reform and EAC in the same sentence? Talk about being unclear on the concept...

The EAC wasn't designed to be reformed. It was designed to take federal control of critical election functions from the states, and with either Holt's bill or Feinstein's the takeover will be complete, official... and permanent.

To EmLev re comment #13 as shown on the CA SOS Web site: "Written testimony may be submitted by delivering it to the hearing or by emailing it to votingsystems@sos.ca.gov [before the 10 a.m. starting time on Monday, July 30th]. Anyone wishing to ensure their comments are considered prior to the Secretary of State issuing her decisions on August 3 must submit their comments by August 1. Comments will be accepted through August 31."